16 frame shooting star animation.
January 2022-September 2024
Needlepoint
Frames from my shooting star gif. 16 frames total. Each frame is 8x6.5 inches on a 10” mesh. Designed and animated in photoshop and needlepointed by me. I started drafting this 1/14/22 and finished animating it 9/25/24. It took approximately two years and eight months to finish. This is one of the largest projects I’ve ever worked on and I’m very happy with how it turned out.
Teeny tiny pineapple block quilts by artist Amy Pabst
Here's some with my hand to give you an idea of scale on each block:
I did get to chat a little with Amy while she was in her gallery zone. She said she works often with silks, including reclaimed ones, and she finger presses her work rather than using an iron. The pastel rainbow piece above is called Soft Pride, measures 41cm x 41cm, has 11,925 pieces, and took her about 4 weeks to make. She does not use a magnifying glass while she works, relying purely on her eyesight, but she does make sure to take regular eye rest breaks every 10-20 minutes.
Korean-American painter Leeah Joo’s work is inspired by the enigmatic and hidden. In her illusionist paintings, she teases our predisposition to probe and uncover. Intriguing parcels in her Pojagi series are enveloped by a lavish, traditional Korean wrapping cloth and beckon to be unpacked. The richly detailed paintings of lacey drapery in her Parrhasius series present an open-ended narrative, inviting us to question what lies behind the curtain. Joo studied painting and art history at Indiana University in Bloomington and received her MFA in painting from the Yale School of Art, Her paintings have been exhibited widely in the U.S. and South Korea. She is the recipient of notable awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, George Sugarman Foundation, Connecticut Commission on Arts and the Puffin Foundation. Currently, Leeah Joo lives and paints in Middlebury, Connecticut and teaches at Southern CT State University and Paier College.
What the fuck do you mean that's a quilt??? Round 2
All quilts are contest winners from the quilt show Road to California, 2022. You can see these quilts and the other winners from that year here.
Best of Show Quilt
Title: Harlequinade
Maker: Rebecca Prior
Quilter: Jackie Brown
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
"Harlequinade" is a theatrical quilt filled with visual clues guiding viewers to discover a hidden story. Inspired by Venetian Carnival masks and commedia del'arte characters, the quilt features the antics of Harlequin, the trickster, who has his own ideas about freedom and fun!
Director's Choice
Title: Welcome Home
Maker: David Taylor
Quilter: David Taylor
Design Basis: Original image by Margo Clabo, used with permission
I first saw this image from friend Margo Clabo more than a decade ago. It took years to convince her to let me adapt her photo into a quilt. The image it depicts is especially sentimental for her. The challenge for myself was to create a pieced pictorial background and recreate a traditionally pieced quilt by using my hand appliqué technique. The project size was overwhelming, but I'm thrilled with the finished quilt. So is Margo. Time to exhale.
Note: To be clear, that is not a photo with a quilt in it, that WHOLE THING is a quilt.
Best Machine Stationary Quilting
Title: Emerald labyrinth
Maker: Kumiko Frydl
Quilter: Kumiko Frydl
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
As a starting point I used an image from the entrance to the EL Barkookeyeh Mosque in Cairo. Thinking of an elegant and intricate garden I added bursts of natural color and filled the area between the large elements of the design with finer ornament inspired by butterflies and plants. I set the circular image in a rectangular frame with a subdued complimentary design of rippled reflective pools.
1st Place: Animal
Title: Woodland Wilds
Maker: Ann Horton
Quilter: Ann Horton
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
My morning hikes in the woodland hills of our northern California home inspired this quilt. The rabbits are always alert for danger. This machine appliqued, thread painted and embroidered view through a window is surrounded by wild flowers on hand dyed silk and again surrounded by other wild birds and animals. I love my wilds things in the woods!
1st Place: Human Image
Title: The Memories That Remain
Maker: Lynn Czaban
Quilter: Lynn Czaban
Design Basis: Library of Congress Photos - LC-USF33-006183MI and LC-USF33-0061
I am fascinated by the human face and our ability to communicate without uttering a single word. The Portuguese word 'saudade' meaning a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something or someone that one cares for and loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again.
1st Place: Naturescape
Title: Desert In Spring
Maker: Andrea Brokenshire
Quilter: Andrea Brokenshire
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
My Mom and I embarked on an epic travel trip we named our "Thelma and Louise Adventure" In Palm Springs, CA we visited the Living Desert Botanical Garden. This quilt is inspired by one of the photographs I took that spring day of a Prickly Pear Cactus in full bloom. I loved the leathery texture of the cactus leaves (paddles) and the almost translucent citron yellow blossoms.
2nd Place: Animal
itle: Not Today
Maker: Kestrel Michaud
Quilter: Kestrel Michaud
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
The chase is on! The Roadrunner is after his next meal, chasing a Common Collared Lizard through a steampunk junkyard. The desert is a favored dumping ground for the detritus of progress, even in a fantasy world. A steam-powered industrial revolution creates iron refuse and pieces of broken machinery have been left to decay in dry desert air. That doesn’t bother these critters. To them, this is home. Will that lizard wind up as dinner? Not today!
2nd Place: Human Image
Title: Declaration of Independence - Voices of Freedom
Maker: Nancy Prince
Quilter: Terri Taylor
Design Basis: Reproduction of John Trumbull's Painting
The quilt is a reproduction of John Trumbull's painting which depicts the moment in history when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress on June 28, 1776. The quilt front and back were created in Photoshop and custom printed on fabric. Four thousand hours over 4 years was necessary to create the quilt. The back captures the story of the Declaration and its signers.
Note: I'm not at all patriotic. But credit where credit is due. That's a fucking quilt.
3rd Place: Animal
Title: Midnight Flight
Maker: Joanne Baeth
Quilter: Joanne Baeth
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
Several years ago we had an injured Great Horned Owl roosting in our willow tree during the day. I took several pictures and was inspired to create him in fabric. The background features a painted sky, old buildings, melting snow and a rabbit on the run The foreground is the swooping owl which was constructed by painting and inking each feather and thread painting over fabrics and needle punched wool rovings
3rd Place: Naturescape
Title: Day Into Night
Maker: Deb Deaton
Quilter: Deb Deaton
Design Basis: Maker's Original Design
Inspired from photo by Robert Murray with his permission. When the Arizona sun begins to set, the sky comes alive. I saw this photo and knew the splendor of this landscape needed to be captured with fiber! Sky is hand painted. Raw edge applique. Mixed media used: oil pastels, color pencils, inks to enhance the fabrics and create more dimension. Cheesecloth: painted to create spikes of cactus. Tulle used to capture the sunrays. Machine quilted.
One side effect of my research for this novel being steeped heavily in textile history is my swelling disgust with modern fabrics.
Firstly they're so thin? Like most things you see in Old Navy or even department stores might as well be tissue paper?? Even some branded sports t-shirts I've bought in recent years (that are supposed to be 'official apparel' and allegedly decent quality) are definitely not going to hold up more than a year or two without getting little holes from wear.
This side of even two hundred years ago fabrics were made to be used for YEARS, and that's with wearing them way more often because you only owned like three sets of clothes. They were thick and well made and most importantly made to LAST. And they were gorgeous?? Some of the weaves were so fine and the drape so buttery we still don't entirely know how these people managed to make them BY HAND. Not to mention intricate patterning and details that turned even some simple garments into freaking ART.
I know this is not news, the fast fashion phenomenon is well documented. Reading so much about the amazing fabrics we used to create and how we cherished and valued them, though, is making it hard not to mourn what we lost to mass production and capitalism. Not just the quality of the clothing and fabrics themselves, but the generations of knowledge and techniques that are just gone. It makes me what to cry.